Episode 3 Three steps to kickstart your leadership job search

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Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

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leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode three.

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I'm really glad you're here with me.

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This episode is all about kickstarting,

your leadership job search process.

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You know that you're ready for

that next leadership role or

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even your first leadership role.

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But for some reason, you're just

not taking action to make it happen.

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What we're going to look at today.

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Uh, three things you can do

to kickstart that job search

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process and get things going.

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Now we all have busy lives, busy

jobs that sometimes thinking about

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starting the whole job search

process can feel quite daunting.

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It's probably the last thing you want

to do when you get in, in the evening.

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Is to sit down and start job searching.

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But if you do want to find that next role.

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Then you do have to create

some space to make it happen.

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Because job searching let's face.

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It can be a full-time job in itself.

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But hopefully today I'm going to

show you that it doesn't have to be.

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That doing some foundational work, which

I'm going to talk through with, you can

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help you further down the line in finding

that success that you're really wanting.

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Let's think about these three

steps I'm going to share with you.

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And I'm not going to mention the

word CV to you at this stage.

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So this is the foundation

work that you need to do.

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The first thing and

it might sound obvious.

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But what I want you to think about

is setting a date by which time

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you want to be in that new role.

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Not when am I going to start my

job search, but when do I actually

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want to be in that new role?

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Because giving yourself a date

for it sets a marker of that's

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the goal I want to achieve.

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And it gives you something to work

towards so that you're not drifting.

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It also helps you to do some

planning because you can then

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work back from that date.

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And actually start to create some time

and some space for your job searching.

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And then what we want to be

using that date for also is as

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a motivator for your job search,

we want to create a poll factor.

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Uh, poor motivator rather

than a push motivator.

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So push motivated might be I'm feeling

bored and unstretched in my job, or I

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really don't like my organization anymore.

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So it pushes you to change.

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Whereas a pool factor is actually

a motivator that, Is encouraging

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because you really want to achieve

it because it's attractive.

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So you can start to think about what

will being in that new, more senior role.

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What will it do for me?

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What would it do for my life

and the people in my life?

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You can think about what difference

it's going to make to you, to

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your finances and to your family.

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for example, if you know that the

next senior role is going to be more

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fulfilling, Because it's going to

give you more stretch at which means

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you're going to be happier in your

job, which means you're probably going

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to be happier at home as well, which

is going to have an impact on the

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people around you, a positive impact.

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Or if you're say going for a 10

K pay rise, thinking about what

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that will do financially for you.

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And for your family.

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What's it going to allow you to do how's

it going to change your circumstances?

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That can be motivating to.

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Or it could be about achievement

in the next role and what that next

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role would allow you to achieve.

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For example, if it's going to be, say

your first director level role, Maybe

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that's going to boost your confidence,

which means you can do more engaging work,

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which is going to make you feel great.

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It's going to have a knock-on

effect on your wellbeing.

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Or that next role might give you more

control over your working hours and how

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you structure your time during the day.

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And that's going to mean that

you'll feel less stressed.

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It's important to tap into what that

next new role is going to do for you.

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Because that can be incredibly motivating.

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If you can picture yourself in that role.

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And see the impact that rose

is going to have on your life.

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That's your first step setting that

date, by which time you want to be in

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the role and identifying how that role is

going to make a difference to your life.

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And what that motivation can do for you.

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Let's move on to the next step,

which is a really important step.

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And often one that people don't do or

don't do deep enough, but it's really key.

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And that's creating your ideal role.

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And by that time in thinking

about what are the elements of

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the next more senior role for you?

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. It's just got to have, what

do you want from that role?

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And we're thinking ideal because

you can then narrow it down

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into your non-negotiables.

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But just giving yourself free

range to think about what do I

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really want that next role to have?

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What are the success factors for me?

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Not comparing yourself to other people.

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This is what's important for you.

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What's your definition of success.

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And with my clients, I do a lot of work

with them about really understanding their

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success criteria, because getting clear

about what that next role needs to look

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like, what the elements are within it.

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We'll help you not waste

time in your job search.

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By applying for things that

aren't going to give you what's

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in your success criteria list.

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It will help you use your

time more effectively.

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And also when you're at offer stage,

because you will get to offer stage.

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It will help you with

your decision-making.

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With your decision-making is

going to be an emotional response,

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which is going to be helpful.

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How you feel about

being offered that role.

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But also you can use your

criteria as a more objective

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logical decision-making tool.

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Because both of those

elements are important.

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So how you feel about it,

the role does it excite you?

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Does it make you feel, oh, wow.

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They've offered me the role.

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Because that's important

information for you.

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But you do also need to check out, is

it actually going to meet my criteria?

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Because,

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,

When you've been offered a job, you don't want to say yes to it, and then

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find actually the things that are

really essential for you in terms of

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your enjoyment stretch, et cetera.

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Aren't actually part of that role.

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, what do I mean by your criteria?

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That's the things that you

define as your motivators.

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That mean you feel engaged in

that job that you feel successful.

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And also when you're thinking about

those things, you can think about.

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What are the essentials regarding

the culture of the organization?

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Because if you're going into a

leadership role, you want to know

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that your leadership style is going

to be aligned with the organization.

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That you're not going to be

bumping up against a very

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different leadership culture.

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You want it to support your style

and engage your style of leadership?

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So that you're going to feel it's

going to be a good fit, and that can

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be part of your criteria as well.

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, but also thinking about the stretch

element in the role, because you're

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going to be going in as a leader.

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But also, probably going

in as a specialist, too.

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You're going to be maybe a marketing

specialist or an HR specialist

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or a finance specialist, sales

tech, whatever it might be.

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You're going to have to think

about, what's going to give you

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stretch in both of those areas.

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As a leader, what do you want

in terms of being stimulated?

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Is it about size of team?

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Is it about the sort of strategic

work you're going to do?

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Is it about how you can

help shape the organization?

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And as a specialist, what's it going

to allow you to do in terms of impact?

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What are the things that's going

to let you experiment with?

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Or grow or try out new things.

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Within your specialism.

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Then the other factor you need to think

about are the paying conditions, because

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it's important to do the research

now around the financial implications

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of the move, because you need to

know where you are within the market

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right now, in terms of your salary.

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And then what you want in

terms of paying increase.

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And if you're under

market rate at the moment.

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You need to still be thinking about where

you want to be, because just because

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your current employer isn't paying you,

the market rate doesn't mean that you're

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not worth the market rate or above.

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You need to understand your value

and what you want to be achieving.

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As female leaders, we often

don't negotiate our worth.

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So knowing what your worth

is, is important to you.

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And it will build your confidence

in the job search process.

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And also when you get to offer

stage, it'll build your confidence

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in negotiating the salary.

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That's right for you.

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That's step two.

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Doing that foundational work

about what's important to, me.

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What has my next role got

to have for it to be easy?

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Yes.

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For me to take it.

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Now the third area that we need to

think about is managing your mindset.

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Wobbles.

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Because often when I work with clients

around moving to that next role,

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there's a lot of that inner dialogue

going on in terms of, can I do it?

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Have I got enough experience

in my current role.

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Do I need to do more training?

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, actually, I'm not sure I'm

confident enough to do this role.

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I'm not strategic enough.

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I don't have enough influence.

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And all of those things

start to pop into our heads.

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When we start to think about

going for that next role.

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Because what we're going to be

doing is getting out of our comfort

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zone by going into a new role.

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In a new organization.

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Uh, or even promotion

in our existing company.

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We need to think about how we

can engage our inner coach rather

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than listen to our inner critic.

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And if you're going for a

new role, there's going to be

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some uncertainty around that.

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There's going to be the potential

for rejection or some kind of

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vulnerability during your job search.

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And because our brain wants to keep her

safe, it will start to throw anything

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at us using the inner critic to avoid us

taking the kind of action that's going

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to put us into an interview situation.

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Or some sort of situation

where we might be exposed.

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It will start to kick in with

all those things that it knows

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you feel a bit insecure about

whether they're true or not.

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Being able to manage your mindset.

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Wobbles now will help you

throughout the job search process

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and further down the line.

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And that's about engaging your inner coach

to remind yourself of your strengths.

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Your achievements, what you're bringing

to the role, . And that will also, , Boy

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you up in terms of the types of roles you

feel you want to apply for by doing that

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foundational work of reminding yourself

of all those great things about you, that

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you've got to offer your future employer.

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Let's just do a little

recap of the three steps.

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We're going to be thinking about setting

a date by which we want to achieve that

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new role and reminding ourselves of what

that new role is going to give us to

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increase our motivation for taking action.

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We're going to be thinking about

our ideal role criteria and creating

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a list of all the things we want.

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That next role to have an understanding

what our non-negotiables are.

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And finally we want to be

managing our mindset wobbles.

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And engaging our inner coach

throughout the process.

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I hope you're feeling more motivated

now to kickstart your job search

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process for your next senior role.

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This is an area that I work a lot with

clients on getting you feeling confident

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in terms of your personal leadership

brand and how you promote yourself,

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that next role, how you get clear on

your ideal criteria and your job search

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strategy to achieve that new role.

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So do get in touch.

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If this is something

you want help with too.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co uk, and I'll

also put links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.